Monday, June 06, 2016

Books read in 2016: No. 19 -- The Rainbow Trail

by Zane Grey

Started: May 26
Finished: June 6

Notes: This is a sequel to Grey's famous Riders of the Purple Sage, which I read some years back and since have seen a TV movie based upon it. I liked the first novel enough that I thought I'd take a peek at the next one.

Mini review: Much like the earlier novel, there is a lot of time here spent describing the scenery of the West, to the point I'm thinking this must have been one of the reasons these books were relatively popular in the early 20th Century, probably because it allowed a less-traveled crowd a new experience. For the average modern reader, all that description is probably a bit too much. The characters here are interesting, and it was nice to revisit some old favorites, but there's not a lot of action. Besides the scenery, practically a character in itself, most of this book is about inner worries, a little bit of intrigue, and a rather long chase by horseback. There's next to no fighting here at all, which might be a drawback to those who expect such from their Westerns. Not a bad book, easy to read, but it didn't overly excite me. Still, of the two books of his I've read, Grey interests me enough that I would give him another chance at some point.

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

Never read it, but I did read Purple sage. Definitely it felt somewhat dated.